Packed with great content but be prepared to work for your victories.
Resource points are classified as personnel, ammo, or fuel. Resource points are normally accumulated by holding territory and building improvements. Additional combat units and resource points can be brought onto the field by airborne drops or by capturing key buildings or points. Additional specialized skills and units can also be selected by choosing a specific military doctrine or discipline but selection of a doctrine automatically locks a player into a specific tree of available improvements to the gameplay.
Combat units vary from the engineers and light infantry to heavy tanks and mobile artillery units. Air support is also available in the form of reconnaissance aircraft, fighter/bomber strafing runs, off-map artillery and even V2 rockets for players in Skirmish mode playing Axis. New structural units can also be brought onto the field in the form of new buildings or defensive improvements such as sandbags, barbed wire fences, etc. Two defensive skills that are notably missing are the ability to dig foxholes or trenches. The single-player campaign is focused on completing missions set in locations of actual battles fought in WW-II. Each mission has different objectives. One shortcoming to the single-player campaign is that the whole campaign is played entirely from the point of view of the Allied forces and the missions are all based on the months immediately following the Allied landing in Normandy. The campaign menu screen was clearly designed with expansion packs in mind so expect to see upcoming releases for future campaings. In addition to completing each mission’s primary objectives there is the opportunity to complete secondary objectives for medals and other badges of honor but these medals do not add any extra capabilities to the game.
The skirmish mode allows one to play against the computer either 1:1 or fighting with or against up to 3 additional AI players on a fixed map with the goal of capturing and holding key positions. Each skirmish game can typically take 30-60 minutes depending on the skill level of the player and the AI. Here is where your computer really needs to be up to snuff in terms of video processing power because the 4:4 maps can have up to 50 different units in play and this will really slow down computers that do not have up-to-date video cards, and CPUs.
Multi-player is also supported for Skirmish games and users can create and download custom maps from a number of community supported websites.
Players must adopt a very strong offensive strategy to succeed in most games in Company of Heroes. Players cannot afford to dig in too deeply because there are too many ways the opponent can wipe out defenses very quickly. I learned this the hard way when I tried to sandbag and mine a key set of bridges in Carentan only to see my hard work wiped out in seconds by an off-map artillery barrage. One should also note that the differences between Axis and Allied forces are more than just the colors of their uniforms and the names of the tanks. Each side has unique paths to unique unit improvements so don’t expect that being an expert at Allied skirmish will make you equivalently skilled as an Axis commander.
There are a few bugs in this game, mostly related to the start of short movies between missions. I had several instances where missions would not start, pending a software queue to begin a movie. After rebooting, the movie and mission played fine so I do not think this was a limitation of my hardware. One should also download the 1.4 patch immediately after installing the game because there is a bug in the 1.3 patch that allows vehicles to drive right through barbed wire and tank traps as if they weren’t there (among other bug fixes and improvements, mostly for multi-player).
One feature heavily touted in this game is the visceral detail during combat. This is especially apparent during explosions. Bodies fly, vehicles and buildings burn, buildings can even be reduced to rubble given enough firepower during attack. Tanks will drive right through most walls so get used to thinking outside of the lines in this game.
There are 4 different difficulty levels available for all missions and one can switch between difficulty levels during the campaing. At higher difficulty levels playing against the computer expect to work very hard for victory. Other experienced RTS gamers have reported that this game requires less micromanagement than many other games of this genre. Fortunately, one can pause games against the AI and still scroll the map. This is a valuable safety net for newbies not quite ready for the true “real time” experience.
Overall, the game content and replay value make this game a great addition especially for players new to RTS.